Jul19

Log Cabin Blankie

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This was my first big destash project of 2012.  It started on a long road trip from Memphis to Wichita, in the back seat of my daughter’s vehicle, next to Hannah, her puppy.

I think it took on some of her characteristics.  It required much more attention from me than I originally planned to give it.  It caused me to spend more money than I had budgeted.  And it seemed to take over my waking life.

Log Cabin squares

The pattern for the blanket shows it bordered with black, similar to many of the granny square afghans I grew up seeing.

Not a fan.

So I thought I’d border mine with a blue to match my dorm pillow.

and the squares just kind of get lost.

So I’m frogging out the blue and I’m going to make some more squares.  Stay tuned.

Jul18

Blueberry Squares

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So I started a destash project — my Log Cabin Blankie — and ended up with more yarn than ever.

But then I saw this beautiful pattern and I thought, ok, I can try another destash.

This is from susyranner on Flickr.

But I have this favorite pic of blueberries — it’s my desktop background — and coincidentally the colors would look great in my room….

So I’m on a quest for Simply Soft in these colors.

I have started a GIMP image incorporating the yarn swatches onto the berries.

swatch palette for Blueberry Squares

swatches of Simply Soft

Jun29

not knitting…

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I’m blessed with work and the discovery of a new site called Listia, which is like eBay for barterers.  So I’m destashing/dejunking and occasionally finding something I really want in return.  But the graphicist in me desperately wants to tweak my look here and add some pics.  *sigh*  Maybe later…

Jun3

Precursors

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I just walked into the house after a morning drive. More on that later.

I’m having sort of a freefall of the senses; something in it very reminiscent of the one and only time I jumped out of an airplane.  Gravity and direction seem sort of vague, and I feel something that whispers both of euphoria and of panic.

I’m current on my meds and my blood pressure is probably just fine.  I am short of breath and my heart rate is rapid.  I noticed on the drive home how wretched my distance vision has become — it was kind of alarming to notice that I couldn’t read the street signs until I got right up on them.

I came across a small journal recently and found several pages outlining the symptoms of a bad fibro relapse.  It was interesting to read it while I’m essentially in a remissive phase.  There were days when I would get up and run an errand, go back to bed; get up, complete a short assignment, go back to bed.  I would sleep up to 14 hours a day and still feel tired.

People suggested I was sleeping too much.  Hell, I knew that.  I also know my body.  I know the difference between the malaise that comes from sitting around too much, which exercise will remedy.  I also know the bone-crushing exhaustion of fibromyalgia when it surfaces as chronic fatigue.

These weather precursors that I experience occur 1 to 2 hours before a front moves in.  The more dramatic the symptoms, the quicker and more violent the weather becomes.  When I was very ill I would pass out, as if from an attack of narcolepsy.

Now the precursors are less possessive, and are similar to the sensation I have when I’m approaching a channeling state.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s sort of a feeling of vertigo, a gentle pleasant humming in my head.  My sense is that I can almost touch the spirit guide that is present.

Sometimes I can channel the guide through writing or typing, but the session is always best when I’m channeling on behalf of someone else.  When they are receptive, they contribute their energy and their bandwidth, so to speak, to the communication.  And sometimes remarkable things happen.

My mission today was to pick blueberries.  The weather has been lenient of late and I practically missed the strawberry season, and blueberries just started.  So I sped off to Nesbit, only to find that there’s no picking on Sunday and Monday.  But I had a nice chat with George, stopped at the Dairy Bar for a vanilla shake and made my way home slowly up Highway 51.

The sights and sounds of the country nearly almost always sprout hope in my heart.  I see little rundown shacks and I think, I could live there.  The Capricorn in me points out that I couldn’t live there without Internet access and a lawnmower, but surely that’s manageable.

But there was something about seeing the clusters of blueberries on the bushes, thick as grapes, still green, that feels like money in my pocket.  They’re just waiting for me, just like the angels.  I just need to reach out a little.

Apr17

ivy

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ivy

I wonder where my fascination with ivy began?  It’s one of the lesser totems of my life.

When I moved into the house on Marcia, the kitchen pantry was lined with ivy wallpaper.  (My dad painted over it one day while I was gone.  “You were going to paint over it, weren’t you?” as if any alternative was unthinkable.)

When I lived in Austin, while browsing the local Goodwill store, I spotted a plate, sage green with white ivy leaves.
It was just one plate, tho, and I had no use for a single plate.  But it was there the next time I went back, and for $1.50, it was a must purchase.

Turns out it was Harkerware.  Thus began a long love affair with all things pottery, especially tableware, but also bowls.  I angered my friend Ann one time because I had found a huge bowl somewhere shopping, and she thought I should let her buy it.  But I had been looking for a bowl like it for big recipes, like oatmeal cookies, where the flour goes everywhere when you start up the mixer.  At the time I did not understand why somehow I seemed like the bad guy in this deal, because she had numerous similar bowls and I had none.

In retrospect, I understand it a little better today.  Crockery can be a kind of addiction.

Anyway, back to Austin:  I began searching for pieces of the Harkerware on eBay and I ended up buying, selling, collecting, learning everything I could.  I inherited a large cache of Fiesta from Mom, who included boxes and boxes bequeathed to her by the former Anne Roney, who’d gotten tons of china and figurines and JUNK for her wedding gifts.

I began collecting a huge set of Azura by Taylor Smith Taylor.  It seemed the perfect fine china companion to my everyday Ivy Wreath.

It’s all in boxes now.  I gave the Azura to Rachel when I moved back to Memphis.  She’s used it once, last Thanksgiving.  It set a very nice table.

Three of my salad plates are downstairs in the kitchen.  I should probably rescue them.  I had the sugar bowl in the hallway, to keep dog biscuits handy.  Hannah discovered these, and the sugar bowl is no more . It’s not like I used the sugar bowl, anyway, and I’m certainly not using it now.  I still have the lid, and I might find a replacement for it.  But not for a while.

One of my favorite photos is of a sprig of ivy in a bud vase, sitting on the windowsill of the bathroom upstairs on Carnes.  It’s flanked by some of my seashells.  Not sure if I even have those shells anymore or the vase, but I have that photo.  I look at it frequently, tried to make it part of my Facebook timeline but it’s the wrong crop.

Near the garage, there’s ivy sprouting in a place where hostas had been and died.  It’s tenacious and hardy.  It holds the ground together and can form a carpet across a lawn in no time, or up an exterior wall.  It is the bane of masons and carpenters, and it can be tiresomely mundane.  But there’s something about it that reminds me of sweeter times, of disappointments and flawed relationships, and hope.

Nov18

Permanent

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I am not a boy.

I have straight, dark hair.

I am four.  My best friend is beautiful. And I am not.

She makes me sit in a chair.
She pulls my hair and twists it around tiny plastic things.
I like to play with the little sheets of tissue paper.

Sit still, she says.
Here, you can hand these to me, one at a time.

I feel important.  I am helping her.

I don’t like the cold dripping down my neck.
I don’t like the smell.
It’s hard for me to breathe.

But she looks determined and certain.  This will make you beautiful, she says.

The plastic things are sticking into my head.
I want to scratch but she says no.
Just a little longer and you will be beautiful.

I want to be beautiful.  Then she will love me.

She pulls a chair to the sink and pushes my head under the faucet.
The water is warm and feels so good I want to stay there forever.

But I have to be neutralized first.

I am wet and cold and the skin of my head feels like a blister.
But she squirts the neutralizer onto my head.
We’re almost done, she says.

The sun is shining.  I can see the lawn through the glass door.
My friend comes to the door.  She is beautiful.

But I cannot go outside.

I am not beautiful yet.

Sep14

depression

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it doesn’t even seem fair to call it depression. it just feels like nothing. Life just feels like very, very slow death. One day is just like the next. I pray at night that God will show me mercy and that, after all these years, he will just let me sleep forever. I do not dread anything but the unending stretch of years without any real joy.

I fake it, I lie about it, I laugh until tears stream down my face. At the core of me is an endless black hole that sucks the meaning out of every moment. I don’t care about anyone or anything. I work to pay my bills and keep food in my body. I smile at people who wait on me and hope that I encourage them just a little, because nothing encourages me.

Money matters little, because there will never be enough to make me happy. I suspect more money would simply tempt me to eat, drink or drug myself to death. I don’t feel like I can share this with anyone who knows me. I think it would shock them. It kind of shocks me. But not really.

I have a doctor’s appointment next week. More drugs, more vitamins, more sun, more exercise. I do not see the point. Why prolong a life that seems pointless?

Aug21

aging parents

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My Dad has just become increasingly frail but continues to try to do things like put the trash bin on the curb and cut the grass.  He’s always been a hard worker and is happiest when he’s doing physical things.  He complains bitterly of being tired and when he does get up and try to do something it’s to be celebrated.  It’s just that he puts himself at risk so often.

The other thing is he has always been sort of reclusive and with each passing year leaves home less and less.  He is anxious when my mother leaves him.  And she is anxious when she leaves him as well.  She used to go out once a week and play cards and volunteer at the church but she has pretty much given up her social life to run around after him.

Decades ago my brother offered to build them a house near him where he lives, which is about 30-40 min from where they are now.  We’ve pleaded with them to move out of that house they live in now, that they bought in 1969.  It’s on a steep hill, so the driveway is as well. 

Both front and back steps are tiny little concrete pads with no handrails — the back is especially dangerous.  My Mom suffers from vertigo and recently fell coming down the attic stairs, knocking my Dad on the floor.  She sprained her ankle and he hit his head on the tile.

I think you get the picture.

Then there’s the mental illness part of this.  My mother is afraid of doctors and mistrusts all medication.  So she tinkers with both Dad’s and her own drugs.  She only takes a fourth of her antidepressant and she takes it like a tranquilizer.  She cannot comprehend that it’s not that, nor a narcotic, and that it needs to be taken just like her blood pressure medicine.

She has dismissed sitters, who would at least make sure they got their meds and would get her out of the house now and then.  She is unwilling to go up against Dad, who doesn’t want to move, to get them into at least a retirement community, OFF THAT DAMN HILL.

She calls us in turn, telling us all that no one else pays any attention to her (we all check in regularly) to say that she is very sick.  Yet when we manage to squeeze out 2-3 hours from our schedule to make the trip to visit, she either disappears into the kitchen or the bedroom or sits down and tells us every thing is fine.  This makes both of us crazy, and simply mystifies the rest of the family.

So my brother woke me up last week worried about Mom, and after investigation it was determined that she’s simply now picked him as her current rescuer.  She’s even called my ex from time to time.  It’s insane, and my brother and I have just had about enough.  So I took a day to talk to my peeps and even went to the church and ended up having a pastor pray with me.  But I think we have a rough plan in place, and have agreed to intervene with Mom and Dad AS A FAMILY, which is something new for us.

Mom has always been the gatekeeper of all the family relationships and she has always been threatened whenever any one of us appeared to have a relationship that didn’t include her.  She is very controlling while appearing sweet and guileless.  She’s a master manipulator. 

While she and Dad have very real issues that concern us all, she has sabotaged any attempts of aid, pits us against each other and has succeeded in alienating us all from each other until just the last few years.  It’s a real testament to her, though, because she’s always ensured that we meet at her house at least half a dozen times a year or more for family dinners, and over the years at least we remember who each other are.

And we love each other, all of us, through thick or thin, through the spats and the silent treatment.  We are family, and we all have that value in common – we stick together.